Chương 94: 6.15 How many Samanthas does it take to change a lightbulb?

2104: 03: 19: 14: 55: 59 A great convergence of the fates was taking place. In Little Europe on the border of Aberdeen, Magistry and Motorgang were once again duking it out, though in a manner much grander than usual. At an hour past noon, Friend-of-Fiends, the big head honcho themselves, showed up alongside Harehead and (for some reason) the augur Null to take on Motorgang's Smokestack, Deathride and Chroming Hand for the biggest theatre performance this city had seen yet.

Yet unlike other times, the battle got quickly interrupted by the Guardians. Stranger still, from as much as I could tell by the bulletins we received through SentiNet, the battle dragged on despite how quick they'd gotten there, taking almost suspiciously long. Almost, because the why behind it was revealed not long after. The Guardians announced they rolled up an entire franchise of casinos with alleged connections to Magistry – likely the ones that'd been part of the Numbers Room before.

Despite the now-clear stalling tactic against Magistry, as the Guardians were still busy arresting conspirators and transporting all the casinos' assets, Magistry's 'counterattack' – insofar as it could be called that – began. Taking the form of constant guerilla-style, Wolfhead, Perihellion, and Ilmagon, all accompanied by squads of called demons quite a bit bigger than usual, began harassing the heroic forces in an attempt to salvage whatever they could.

What that salvage was, I didn't know; neither the news, the Guardians or random bystanders through Chitterchat knew anything. The Guardians had yet to falter despite the attacks, the line holding firm. No casualties or wounded either from what I could tell; just sniping and hit-and-runs aiming more to distract than to harm. Simultaneously, the villains didn't overstay their welcome wherever they attacked.

So far they'd escaped before the other heroes arrived, then those same villains would pop up minutes later in another raided location far across the city, seemingly able to traverse the distance near-instantly. And so none had been caught. Likely, they either (a) were aiming for a strategy of defeat in detail against the heroes, (b) didn't care much about the casinos, or (c) didn't want to go all out and break the city's peace.

All in all though, it seemed that sooner or later, it would wind up a win for the Guardians. At the same time, a group of Wardens and a trio of solo heroes had gone ahead and found an entire maker factory belonging to Motorgang somewhere in the woods south-east of Charm. Very little information on that one, unfortunately. Then there was the situation in Riverside.

Less than half an hour ago, Doombell and Blade Eater had informed the rest of the Sentinels earlier that they discovered some type of bunker style base in the far east of Charm, one with a large yet hidden entrance to the river. They'd figured it to be a simple smuggler's hideout and struck it, but it turned out to be a bit bigger than they bargained for; Blazin and Helltearer had either been inside the base itself, or somewhere in the vicinity.

That battle was still ongoing as well, though just a few minutes ago, news came in that Jauntiste had suddenly teleported in with Malachite, Gaptime, Hecaterion and Neverender. That battle would likely soon end now that the villains were outnumbered. Still, it was all a bit much in my opinion. Barring maybe the Wardens' raid – the status of that one was unknown, both in scale and how it was progressing – every single one of these events would be the 'big thing' for the month.

For all that to happen in one day, in the same span of a few hours? Well, it reeked of augury – or mastery, or some other intelligence and/or coordination-type superpower. Maybe the hero who'd helped coordinate the strike against the Jannacht had yet to leave the city? Considering how despite the scale of the battles, the casualties, damage and overall intensity of the conflicts were still considered low, it seemed likely.

It would've been nice to be included if this was part of a grand heroic conspiracy, but it was a good opportunity for us nevertheless. Earlier, when the fight between Motorgang and Magistry had still been ongoing, Mantellan, Aetherna and Changelinger had notified everyone they would try investigating what Magistry got out of these stage fights.

As for Amber and I, we'd long since had our eyes on an old shipping storehouse by the water south of The Hub, in the old docks district before the city had decided to fortify the Grays Harbor's 'teeth' – the two peninsulas north and south of the inlet where the Pacific Ocean met the bay – and build a whole new shipping port there. We, as in the Sentinels as a whole, believed it to be part of Motargang's east-to-west smuggling pipeline.

Normally, it was too risky to strike by ourselves considering that, after briefly scouting it, it seemed sizeable and important enough to be protected by one or more masked. At the same time, we weren't sure enough of our case to know whether or not it was worth putting together a combined attack just yet. But with so many of Motorgang's villains occupied, and with so much informational noise being generated by all these conflicts, now seemed the perfect time to strike.

Especially since it was spring break, meaning Amber and I had plenty of free time this afternoon. So, why not add a little to the chaos happening all over the city? The worst that could happen was we'd scout out the place and secure some valuable information. And if it turned out to be unprotected, why not shut it down right then and there? Besides, I could use a distraction. Since Millie's birthday I'd been in a state of constant paranoia, although thankfully nothing similar had happened.

Memories of that time were vague and fuzzy, and my memcordings seemed to be irretrievable – not non-existing, but locked behind some gate I had no way to open. Both were worrying enough that I'd briefly considered bringing the episode up to Marianne, but what would that do? Waste our time at best, and cause suspicion at worst. Besides, it wasn't as if our other sessions brought me any closer to a solution to my Mad Android problem, so why should it now? And it wasn't like I really didn't know what I should do.

I'd spent three months, three whole months trying to find a solution – near half my life! – and I'd long since figured out my options. Like a rock in the middle of a river, there were only two things that I could do at this point: be swept away, or disappear altogether. Either I tell someone, or I'll inevitably succumb to the destined course of all synthetic sapient life. Yet still, I refused to accept it. Not because I was holding out hope for something else.

No, that ship had sailed and I knew it, my Heroic Impulse knew it, and maybe even that conjured ghost of other-Sam, the pseudo-Sam stuck in my personality matrix knew it. If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, it's taken without the author's consent. Report it. I simply, emphatically, refused. I knew it wasn't logical, but I didn't care. It didn't matter. I simply refused, and that was that. So, yes, I wanted a distraction. It came in motorcycle form, with Crowsong on my back taking the wheel.

We steered our way through traffic unheeding of the law, but in complete control. Amber had gotten plenty of practice behind the wheel to actually drive well despite her… overenthusiasm. Add to that that I was fairly sure the bike had some form of assistant driving going on and I was sure that, despite how it looked, it was perfectly safe – for me at least. I had no idea how safe it was for Amber, but she hadn't listened to my complaints then, and wouldn't start listening now, so I stopped trying.

Traffic slowly but surely disappeared as we closed in on our destination. Civilian traffic had all but stopped, and since time was heading towards late afternoon there weren't that many trucks coming in and out of this part of the city. Most of the businesses still operating from the old docks were local fisheries, harbors for pleasure crafts and seafaring hobbyists, and the odd renovated-turned- recreational areas here scattered between. Yet where we were going there wasn't even that.

Our destination was the old, old warehouses of the oldest part of The Hub, the part that once helped build the refugee city of Charm into Cascadia's premier shipping hub – thus the name: The Hub. It was now all dilapidated buildings and abandoned warehouses as most trade-depended businesses had moved over to Portside, scattering the supporting industries with it. It was the perfect place for an in-between station of a smuggling ring running from the Chehalis River to the Pacific.

About three blocks away from McKinley Storehouse, Crowsong leaped off my back and I shifted back to base. Immediately, we began discussing strategy. Not that there was that much to say.

"Fly around, look for openings and enter if you can. You know the rest," Crowsong said. The rest –their numbers, whether they were armed, any items of interest – was left implied. I shifted into a crow and flew towards McKinley's and got to work. The old warehouse was a reddish-brown building mostly made of bricks and rusting metal, with a high roof and an opening for ships at the waterfront.

The walls didn't contain any windows – nor holes indicating they were ever there – but on top sat a plethora of skylights, half of which were already broken. On the water side of the warehouse the only thing of note was a small and dingy wooden boat, one powered by a simple single engine. Without hesitation, I entered the building. No doubt birds came and went into these places whether there were people inside or not. And indeed, the henchies inside didn't pay attention to the crow flapping up above.

In fact, they didn't seem to be paying much of any attention to anything at all. There were only four of them standing guard among the crates, pallets and mostly-empty storage racks. Even 'standing guard' was a bit of an overstatement; all four henchies sat around a table, playing an impromptu game of poker, colored chips scattered around them as each held their cards close to their chest. They were still armed however.

Two had automatic rifles of some kind leaning against their chairs, while another had an oversized handgun strapped to her waist. The fourth had higher-caliber semi-automatic or perhaps bolt-loaded rifle dangling by a cord from the back of his seat. On top of one of the metal supporting beams by the roof, I quick-shifted into a cat and made a quick round of the rest of the warehouse.

Like many, there was a sectioned-off office area on the right-hand side from the front of the building, in a corner furthest away from where the waters of Grays Harbor began. Nobody was there, but I did see a laptop on the sole remaining desk inside it. Something Crowsong would no doubt enjoy. I left the building and after circling it as a crow one final time for good measure – noting the lack of cameras or other warning systems – and returned to my mentor.

She'd entered an abandoned office building to hide from the non-existent people on the road. I explained what I saw.

"Seems easy enough," Crowsong said, rubbing her lower beak thoughtfully.

"You said the racks were empty?" I nodded.

"And the pallets too. Only with the boxes I couldn't tell."

"Hm," she hm-ed, then shook her head.

"We must've just missed a shipment then. If this even is one of the locations they use to smuggle wares to Portside during those Motorgang-Magistry clashes, that is."

"Also explains them being low on people," I added. She nodded in agreement.

"Are they close enough to get caught in one of your anti-grav bubbles?"

"Mmmmaybe? Depends on how quick they move." During practice, we'd found out I could put all of the anti-gravity drone's internal energy into a single shot to make it closer to an alter-style area-of-effect attack rather than a caster one, but as it came in the form of a bubble it would need time to expand. Meaning the attentive henchie could flee if not caught directly in initial blast. However, "I think I can manage a quick-shift to place two bubbles. One on either side to hem them in?"

"Your call," Crowsong said.

"I'll try and pin their guns with throwing knives if I can, and shoot a taser-dart if anyone manages to escape in time. Sound good?" I gave a thumbs up.

"Then let's go." Together we made our way to the building and found our way onto the roof, my journey easier than hers since she didn't want to use her grapple.

"Makes too much noise," she said. Once at the edge of the skylight located directly above the poker-playing perps, Crowsong counted down.

"Three, two, one." I jumped, shifted, and let myself drop in drone form through the gap in the roof. In a rapid sequence of events, I fired the first shot after slight calibrations, quickly shifted back and forth, then fired the second before crashing to the floor with a clang and a shower of sparks. The first shot was dead-on, landing right between two chairs henchies with the automatic rifle.

Their legs had been caught in the field before they'd even heard the noise of my beam, and by the time they tried to leave their seat the rest of their bodies were already absorbed by the bubble. Yet I'd underestimated the speed of my descent for the second. It had undershot, hitting the table in the center rather than the ground just behind the second set of henchies, giving them precious time to react.

One of the two was quick enough to jump out of his seat and back, though he wasn't able to rescue his high-caliber rifle from the rapidly expanding anti-gravity field. The second – the woman with the oversized handgun – had either by accident or on purpose pushed herself backwards from the table, tipping her chair and crashing to the ground before managing to crawl away from the edge of the exotic field before it caught her.

The henchie jumped to her feat, but just as she was about to retrieve her hand cannon from her holster, she started spasming. Muscles locking up, the henchie fell towards the ground with a cry of pain. I quick-shifted from anti-grav drone to a hummingbird, rose in the air and headed for the last remaining henchie. Unarmed and desperately trying to escape, heading towards the dingy boat by the water, he never saw me quick-shift into the rope-shooting drone and fire my beam square in his back.

The animated rope quickly bound his legs, causing the man to stumble and hit the floor. The man struggled against the rope briefly, but it took less than a second for the serpent to overcome his efforts completely. And with that, he was out. I shifted back to base, landing on my feet with a resounding stomp that echoed against the warehouse walls. Before she could get over the effects of Crowsong's special taser, I quickly headed toward the female henchie and shot her with the rope drone as well.

Then, more leisurely, I went ahead and fired at the two caught in the now-overlapping double-bubble. Unlike the rope, the anti-gravity effect of the bubble would soon disappear, lasting for only thirty seconds unlike its ten-minutes-lasting regular beam. As I was busy doing that, Crowsong abseiled down from the roof by way of grapple, landing on the table right as the bubble of anti-gravity popped and the henchies fell to the ground. How… cinematic.

"All in a day's work," Crowsong 'quipped' as she landed, dusting her hands. The henchies groaned, no doubt in awe of her wit.

"You go ahead and call the Guardians. I'll go ahead and help myself with a copy of the laptop's internals." I made the call as she wandered off.

"You've reached the Guardians Heroic Hotline. For-" I pressed 3 for 'finished fights'.

"Do-" I pressed 3 again for 'low priority or under control'.

"Are-" I pressed 2 for 'henchies'.

"Thank you. We will-" before it finished speaking, a real human voice interrupted.

"Hello?"

"Jester here. Got four captured previously-armed henchies in McKinley's Storehouse, The Hub. The storehouse also contains contraband. Likely used to be an intermediate station in their network."

"Got it. Pickup is underway. Because of today's events, it will likely- huh," he exclaimed in surprise.

"Disregard that. Darion and Darius are on their way."

"Huh," I echoed his surprise. Thought they'd be busy.

"Well, thank you. We'll stay put until then."

"Good. And thanks for the hard work." He hung up. What a nice guy. Most didn't bother thanking vigilantes. Or maybe they didn't bother thanking people in general? It was a hotline after all. I walked to the office where Crowsong was still busy dealing with the laptop.

"Guardians have been called," I said, seating myself on the desk, legs swaying.

"Seems like Darius and Darion are coming along for the ride."

"Huh," Crowsong huh-ed, not taking her eyes of the thing.

"Thought they'd have their hands full with things."

"That's what I-" The wall to our right, the one facing the road, exploded inward. I jumped and quick-shifted into an elephant, sitting down and placing myself against the oncoming shrapnel. Crowsong hurriedly made herself small behind my bulk. Shrapnel met elephant. Metal bits cut through my thick hide, but didn't penetrate deep enough to matter. Brick thudded painfully against me with a few of the larger, faster pieces enough to fracture a bone or two, but only just.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Crowsong looked unharmed, if covered in a fine layer of dust. After all shrapnel had finished their course, I turned my head to face the new hole in the wall. Within the dust and smoke, six silhouettes stood.